The Berkman Center’s mission is to explore and understand cyberspace; to study its development, dynamics, norms, and standards; and to assess the need or lack thereof for laws and sanctions.We are a research center, premised on the observation that what we seek to learn is not already recorded. Our method is to build out into cyberspace, record data as we go, self-study, and share. Our mode is entrepreneurial nonprofit.
Advertising pays for a significant portion of online content and services. But in contrast to other forms of content and service provision, it expects a return on investment despite not being backed by any kind of legal structure or binding agreement. This need for unguaranteed returns generates anxiety on the part of the advertising industry. And it tries to reduce this anxiety by controlling the exchange process from beginning to end through a methodical use of information. This control process involves implementing mechanisms for data collection, devising targeting strategies, structuring price models, establishing standardized metrics, and funneling users to purchases.
While in legacy media the structure of the advertising process and the methods used to reduce advertisers’ anxiety were clearly delineated, the online advertising landscape shows a much more complex structure and a constant process of adaptation to the peculiarities of the online environment. Likewise, while the influence of advertising in the mass media environment has been widely debated, much less has been discussed about the repercussion of online advertising. This talk attempts to draw a map of online advertising, explain its anxiety reduction methods, and explore the consequences of the use of those methods on the ecology of online communication.